Digging Into the Beatitudes

by Brandon Byler

There is a fascinating account of Naimbanna, who was an African prince in the late 1700’s. He arrived in England from the Sierra Leone in 1791. He was given a Bible and told that it was the Word of God. When asked later how he was convinced that it was indeed, the Word of God, Naimbanna replied, “When I found all good men minding the Bible, and calling it the Word of God, and all bad men disregarding it, I then was sure that the Bible must be what good men call it, the Word of God.”

That is an amazing testimony of how men who love God and His Word will put it into practice and display evidence of His love to others. One of the ways to exhibit this kind of a testimony is to live out the beatitudes that Jesus gave us in Matthew 5 as the introduction of His Sermon on the Mount.

The beatitudes are some of the most well known verses in the New Testament. Jesus gives eight descriptions of the blessed Christian life. Being a pastor, it is my desire that the people in my church not only know the verses in the Bible but also know what they mean and why they matter. These twelve verses are packed with theological gold as well as important applications for our lives.

The Setting

Matthew writes his gospel to declare Jesus as the rightful King of the Jews. He is skilled in his writing as well as his use of the Old Testament, quoting Old Testament prophecies dozens of times to prove Jesus is the Messiah who has come to save His people from their sins. He also uses some phrases that point to those who came before Him. For instance, the phrase, “He went up on a mountain,” most scholars agree that this would point the Jewish audience to Moses, the prophet who declared that one greater than Himself would come (Deuteronomy 18:15-16). It was Moses who went up on the mountain to receive the law, and it is Jesus who, while on a mountain, clarifies the law, and through His life and death fulfills the law.

While on that mountain, and because He saw the crowds, He opened his mouth and began to teach them. This brings us to the main points that Jesus has for these people and ,by extension, us as well. As we begin, let me remind you that the Jewish people were not used to an authoritative style of teaching. The scribes would rarely give authoritative teaching. Rather, they would collect together all the opinions and teachings of rabbis alive and dead and offer many different interpretations. This is why we see the amazement of the people in Matthew 7:28, where they are amazed at Jesus who was one who taught as one having authority.

The beatitudes are presented by Jesus not as some kind opinion or good way in life, but as commands presented through the blessings of the faithful man. The word beatitude is drawn from Latin and has an emphasis on blessing or happiness. It is exactly what we think about when we think of the word blessed in verses 3-11.

There are many ways to approach the beatitudes, and I have read no less than nine different interpretations as I worked through them this week. Some of them are quickly rejected as they miss the heart of the whole passage. For instance, those who interpret these blessings as a call to what is known as the social gospel say these are how we produce heaven on earth. The social gospel is a false gospel, and so that interpretation is to be thrown out. The social gospel reduces salvation to works, and the focus becomes on feeding the hungry, helping the poor, caring for the sick, which are all wonderful efforts and should be taken up by Christians. However, there is a neglect of the hard sayings of Jesus, such as “unless you repent you likewise shall perish” (Luke 13:5) and “Unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God” (John 3:3). There is no call to repentance, no turning from sin, not even an effort to take the gospel to others, just a call to help the less fortunate.

I offer to you that it is best to interpret the beatitudes as the will of God in a believer’s life as we wait for Jesus to return. The fullness of the beatitudes will not be experienced until after Jesus has returned, but we can still enjoy and experience some measure—even great measure—of them in the here and now. We also need to understand what kind of literature we are working with in these verses. One of the great problems is people attempt to interpret the beatitudes like they do Ephesians 2:8-9. But it is a different genre and therefore different rules apply to interpretation. The beatitudes are best defined as wisdom literature, where Jesus gives us the convictions to hold as we wait for the kingdom to come.

One of the great problems I have found when people come to our church is not that they don’t know a lot about the Bible; they certainly do. Many have been in church since their nursery years. The problem is no one has taken the time to help them understand what a verse or passage means and why it matters for them today. Before you read further, ask yourself this question: “What does it mean to be poor in spirit, and why is that the blessed condition?”

Let’s answer that question. Jesus gives the first beatitude and it points us to our deep need for God. Jesus uses the word translated as blessed, and sometimes we get ourselves into trouble thinking we know what it means to be blessed. We have to let go of our 21^st century western, specifically American ideas of blessing which brings some measure of material wealth and an easy life. This is what the false teachers in the health, wealth, prosperity preaching will do with this passage, but it is deeply dishonest. The word blessed does not necessarily mean that all will go well for those who live for God. It means, rather, that blessing, as God defines it, is not primarily physical but spiritual.

Blessed are the poor in spirit (Matthew 5:3)

Look at verse 3: blessed, or happy, are those who are poor in spirit, for or because theirs (note the ownership of the word) is the kingdom of heaven. The blessing is not a kingdom on earth, but a kingdom that is heavenly. This is hard for us to accept sometimes because it demands we live for a kingdom that is unseen. However, that does not mean that it is without evidence or even reward in the physical world.

Let’s look back at the first part of the verse. What does it mean to be poor in spirit, or poor in reference to our spirit? It means to recognize our poverty of spirit and that we are unable in any way to secure our place in the kingdom of heaven on our own. We are impoverished, lowly, and weak. The only way our spirit can be “made rich” is by God’s work of justification. Let me say it this way: the only way for us to achieve a right relationship with God is to be born again. We can’t make ourselves be born. Someone else acts on us to bring about our birth. When we come to the point where we recognize our spiritual poverty that we are in such a desperate place that only Jesus can save us, we are as Jesus calls us, poor in spirit. Only then can we have an inheritance in the kingdom of heaven.

Yes, poor in spirit can refer to humility, but the intended meaning here is the helpless nature of mankind to enter the kingdom of heaven on his own. We are poor in spirit, and we are blessed when we recognize that, for then we will call upon God for our salvation. This, of course, leads to us being a humble people before an awesome and gracious God.

Blessed are those who mourn (Matthew 5:4)

In verse four, Jesus teaches, “Blessed are those who mourn, For they shall be comforted.” Again, the word blessed here is the way in which God blesses, not how we understand blessing. The word mourn is a deeply emotional word, and mourning is not an action we commonly associate with blessing. Jesus is teaching a mourning for our sin, and the construction of the word mourn in the Greek stresses an ongoing nature of mourning in a person’s life. This is a different kind of mourning than that over a loss of a loved one. This is a mourning over our sin which separated us from God.

This is a promise of forgiveness and comfort from God. New Testament Greek is a truly fascinating language. English is a wonderful language, but it can be clunky. While I believe God would have had no difficulty using English as the original language of the Bible if He had chosen to do so, He knew what He was doing in using the Greek language of the first century. The word comforted is written in the Greek in the passive voice. That shows that someone is being acted on. We are the mourners, not the comforters. This is in what Greek scholars call the divine passive because the agent who comforts is God.

What we come to understand is that we who mourn over our sins and have repented of them and are now repenting of them continually will be forgiven by God and given comfort by Him. We are therefore right with God, and this blessing is far greater than anything money can buy. This lasts for eternity.

Blessed are the Meek (Matthew 5:5)

This is perhaps the most misunderstood of the beatitudes because the word meek in English has a connotation of weakness. Look up the word in an English dictionary or thesaurus and you will find words like “quiet, gentle, timid, weak, obedient, tame.” That is not what is being communicated in Matthew 5:5.

Rather, the word speaks of humility. Psalm 37:7 speaks of the meek inheriting the land. The word meek there speaks of those who are poor and have been oppressed by wicked men and their circumstances drove them to God. One commentator defined it as patient endurance of injury. That is an excellent way to define meekness. This is not done by some namby-pamby weakling; this endurance requires strength.

The promise here is that they will inherit the earth. It is likely that Jesus is drawing the people to think back to the time when their ancestors were waiting to inherit the Promised Land. But He broadens the horizons: the whole world is spoken of here. I believe that this is a pointing forward to the Millennial kingdom where those who are faithful will rule with Christ. At that time, the whole earth will be inherited by the faithful.

While a promise for the future, there are great encouragements for the present. All the hardships we endure on this side of heaven have reason and purpose to them. We are pilgrims passing through; we are not home yet. All the striving we have gone through and will go through can be endured because there is a future promise of reward for faithful living. It would be enough for God to give us salvation, but He gives us an inheritance of the New Earth. That is incredible!

Think about these powerful truths and which one you most need to focus on in your life right now. The Word of God, Hebrews 4:12 tells us, is powerful and sharper than any two-edged sword. It cuts deep, past bone and marrow and between soul and spirit. Therefore, to bring about lasting change in our lives, we must be reading the Word of God.

Here are some suggested exercises for you this week as you put the beatitudes into work in your life.

1. Read the Sermon on the Mount in full and identify how Jesus expounds on them. For instance, in Matthew 5:21-26, Jesus teaches on anger. The beatitude of mourning over our sin is seen on display here.

2. Do a word study on the beatitude you want to focus on. For instance, if you need to grow in humility, you can use the “study” feature on biblehub.com. A suggested verse to go to is Proverbs 22:4. There is a wealth of information for free about this topic. You can put your topic in the search bar, then see a Scripture that comes up and then select the study feature, and you have much to explore!

3. Pray that God would give you grace to make the necessary changes in your life to grow in obedience. Prayer must be accompanied with Scripture reading. Pour out your heart, for God listens to our prayers. But then we must stop speaking and open our hearts and hear what God has said. Pray for obedience, and it is amazing what God will do in you!

I pray you are helped by this short study. We will pick it up again next week to finish out the study.